News item | 04-07-2022 | 4:00 pm
Liveability and safety are under pressure in a number of areas in Dutch cities. Problems in the field of education, poverty, health, work, housing and safety are piling up. The cabinet wants to tackle this problem together with municipalities and their local partners and residents. With the National Liveability and Safety Programme, various ministries are investing in tackling the accumulation of problems. For example, investments are being made in better public housing (€600 million), the prevention of juvenile crime (€82 million) and tackling poverty and debt (€20 million). Significant investments are also being made in improving the quality of education and strengthening schools with many learning disadvantages.
Minister De Jonge for Housing and Spatial Planning: ‘For the neighborhoods where quality of life and safety are under the most pressure, a successful approach requires a lot of patience and perseverance. In order to break through the accumulation of problems, we have to improve the living situation considerably. If we want a real community to develop in a neighborhood, if we want children in a class to get along with each other, if we want people to continue living in the neighborhood – even if they start earning more, then we have to build mixed neighborhoods with a diverse range of housing options. In this way we improve the living environment, increase safety and give people prospects for the future.’
Minister Weerwind for Legal Protection: ‘Young people deserve a good future, but not everyone grows up in a safe environment. Criminal temptations lurk there. Together with municipalities and professionals from healthcare and education, we want to offer young people structure and future prospects. We make them more resilient and thus they stay on the right path. Also during and after detention.’
Minister Wiersma for Primary and Secondary Education: ‘Everyone in the class deserves the same opportunities to develop, regardless of the family in which you were born or in which district your school is located. Every child should enter his school with a sense of pride and be able to work at the level that suits him or her. The school is the center of the district. By improving neighbourhoods, we also make the schools stronger.’
Integrated approach for 20 vulnerable areas
It concerns 19 municipalities with 20 urban focus areas that are geographically spread across the Netherlands and where a total of more than 1.2 million people live. In practice, local cooperation between governments, corporations, the police, care and welfare organisations, schools and other social organizations and employers is often difficult to get off the ground. As a result, the approach is now fragmented. The government wants to change this with an integrated approach that transcends the various domains to effectively tackle the accumulation of problems. Municipalities and local partners will draw up a coherent implementation program and alliances will be established in the focus areas under the leadership of the relevant mayors.
Restructuring of 25,000 private homes
Improving the housing stock determines the future prospects of an area. By making neighborhoods more diverse and by refurbishing buildings and making them more sustainable, the quality of life improves considerably. Restructuring is often necessary to achieve a more differentiated housing stock. During this cabinet term, a total of €600 million will be invested through the Public Housing Fund (VHF) in the restructuring of approximately 25,000 private homes in vulnerable areas. Restructuring is understood to mean: replacement new construction, intensive and large-scale renovation and sustainability and transformation of real estate into homes.
Preventive approach to juvenile crime
The government also wants to prevent children, young people and young adults in a vulnerable position from engaging in crime, becoming increasingly entangled in it and developing into hardened criminals. That is why the focus is on a broad, cross-domain neighborhood approach and the strengthening of judicial and social support in the neighbourhood. Under the heading ‘Prevention with authority’, the Cabinet has structurally made €82 million available for the preventive approach to juvenile crime and €61 million for the prevention and tackling of juvenile crime.
Breaking through the accumulation of problems
The ultimate goal of the program is to break the vicious circle of problems, so that residents of vulnerable areas benefit structurally. The program is therefore broad and focuses on a promising start, good pre-schools, career orientation and tackling poverty and debt. The government is investing €20 million in tackling people’s problematic debts. Because schools play a crucial role in the development and resilience of local youth, the program is aimed at strengthening the schools by investing in good teachers and school leaders. In consultation with municipalities, it is examined what families need to break through or prevent the accumulation of problems in the urban focus areas. We will use the knowledge and experience gained in the urban focus areas to tackle the problem elsewhere in the Netherlands.
The National Liveability and Safety Program
The National Liveability and Safety Program is a collaboration between BZK, OCW, SZW, JenV and VWS, municipalities and local partners, such as schools, housing corporations, the police, care institutions, but also entrepreneurs who help people with a distance to the labor market to find a job. to get hit.